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HOW TO USE BOX.COM in a Virtual Trial

Box.com is an online file storage platform that allows you to simultaneously share documents with numerous people. Box.com is to be used ONLY to manage and share trial exhibits for civil Zoom jury trials. We cannot use Box.com to store any substantive court work.

Contents Logging In ...................................................................................................................................................... 1

Creating Folders ............................................................................................................................................ 2

Sharing Folders .............................................................................................................................................. 4

Jury Challenges.............................................................................................................................................. 7

Upload and Share Preliminary Jury Instructions ........................................................................................... 8

Admitting Exhibits ....................................................................................................................................... 10

Uploading Final Jury Instructions and Verdict Form and Sharing Admitted Exhibits with Jury .................. 12

Viewing the Verdict Form Once a Verdict is Ready .................................................................................... 12

Logging In

1. Go to Box.com and input the requisite log in credentials.

2. Upon logging in, you will be taken to the page on which all files will be displayed.

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Creating Folders

3. To create a file folder for your Zoom jury trial, click the “New” tab in the top right of the screen.

4. Select “Folder”

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5. Name your folder with the caption of your upcoming trial and its accompanying case number.

6. Click on your newly created folder and click “New” again to add a new folder called “Plaintiff’s Proposed Exhibits.” Repeat that process to create five more folders: “Juror Selection,” “Defendant’s Proposed Exhibits,” “Admitted Exhibits,” “Jury Instructions,” and “Verdict Forms.” Don’t worry about the “Invite Additional People” box right now. We’ll do that later.

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7. You should now have the following folders:

Sharing Folders

8. Now, we are going to share the folders with specific people. Let’s start with Plaintiff’s Proposed Exhibits. Before sharing, you will need the email addresses of all the people to whom Plaintiff and Defendant want to give access to upload to the folder. This list may consist of the paralegal(s) and the attorney(ies). You will also want to add the Judge, law clerks, or other court personnel to this folder. Once you have that information, hover your cursor over the Plaintiff’s Proposed Exhibits folder, and you will see a “Share” button on the far right of the folder.

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9. From here, you will enter the emails that Plaintiff has selected and invite them as “Previewer Uploader.” You can input all email addresses at the same time by separating them with a semi-colon.

10. Once you have shared with Plaintiff’s team, share the Plaintiff’s Proposed Exhibits folder with Defendant’s team BUT this time use the “Previewer” selection for them.

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11. After you share the folder with the necessary recipients, the folder color will change from yellow to blue.

12. Repeat steps 9 and 10 for the Defendant’s Proposed Exhibits folder by giving Defendant’s team “Previewer Uploader” status and Plaintiff’s team “Previewer” status.

13. After sending the invites, the email recipient with whom you are sharing the folder will have to sign up for a free Box.com account if they do not already have one and will have to generate their own password.

14. For the folder entitled “Jury Selection,” invite our jury coordination team as an “Editor” so that the juror list can be uploaded into that folder. Also, invite both Plaintiff’s and Defendant’s attorneys as Editors so that they can use the form on Box.com for preemptory strikes.

15. For the folders “Admitted Exhibits,” “Jury Instructions,” and “Verdict Forms,” share them only with the necessary court personnel before jury selection. Court personnel should be given “Editor” status. (Don’t worry about sharing this folder with jurors at this step because we’ll do that right before deliberations).

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Jury Challenges

16. Jury challenges will occur in a PDF document in Box.com. The jury administration team will upload a .pdf version of the juror list (“Jury Selection Form”) into the “Jury Selection” folder. Court staff and counsel will be able to access the Jury Selection folder and the juror list from Box.com.

17. Once the court and counsel open the document containing the juror list, the courtroom deputy or counsel will hover their cursor at the bottom of the screen, which will reveal a tool bar shown in red below.

18. Court staff and counsel will select the squiggly line on the right of the tool bar. Upon clicking the squiggly line, the user will be given the option to select a color. The Court will use yellow for cause challenges. For peremptory challenges, Plaintiff should select blue; and Defendant should select red.

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19. After selecting the appropriate color, the cursor will change to an icon that looks like a crayon. Using this crayon, the court or counsel will cross off a name from the juror list when exercising a strike. After releasing the mouse button from crossing out a juror name, the courtroom deputy or counsel will be invited to insert a comment.

In the comment box, the courtroom deputy or counsel should place their initials and the number of the challenge taken, such as Cause #1, P #1, D #1.

After counsel has exercised their strikes for that round, counsel should notify opposing counsel stating that their strike(s) has/have been exercised. Because the exercise of strikes will occur in a break out room on Zoom, counsel will state when they are done exercising a strike. Upon hearing this, the court and opposing counsel should refresh the page on which the juror list is being displayed, and the strike(s) that counsel just exercised will appear. This process should continue until strikes are exhausted.

20. AFTER the jury is selected, the courtroom deputy will remove the Jury Selection Form from Box.com and archive it.

Upload and Share Preliminary Jury Instructions

21. Once the jurors are selected and numbered, share the “Jury Instructions” folder with the jury. Give the jurors “Previewer” access when you share the folder. At the beginning of trial, ONLY the preliminary jury instructions should be placed in that folder. (Don’t worry about placing the Final Jury Instructions or Verdict Forms in the folder because we’ll deal with those later).

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22. You can upload the preliminary jury instructions into the “Jury Instructions” folder one of two ways. Open the “Jury Instructions” folder, then click “Upload.”

23. You will be able to upload either an individual file or an entire folder from a network drive or from your desktop on your computer. Once you make your selection, you will choose the file or folder from wherever you have stored it on your computer. The file or folder will upload into the Jury Instructions and Verdict Forms folder on Box.com.

24. An EASIER way to upload the final jury instructions is simply to drag them from your network drive into Box. Box will upload them automatically.

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Admitting Exhibits

25. During trial, after an exhibit is admitted, the courtroom deputy will copy (not move) the admitted exhibit from either the Plaintiff’s or Defendant’s Proposed Exhibit folders into the “Admitted Exhibits” folder. To copy a file, hover your cursor over the exhibit. When you do, you will see a box appear with three dots. Click the three-dot box.

26. When you click the three-dot box, you will see a menu appear. You will select “Move or Copy.”

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27. After clicking “Move or Copy,” you will see this dialog box:

28. As you type “Admitted Exhibits” in the “Select Folders” box, the Admitted Exhibits Folder will appear. Once it does, click on it. Then click “Copy” at the bottom of the dialog box. The exhibit is now copied into the Admitted Exhibits folder.

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Uploading Final Jury Instructions and Verdict Form and Sharing Admitted Exhibits with Jury

29. AFTER the presentation of evidence concludes, upload the final jury instructions to the “Jury Instructions” folder. REMEMBER, you previously shared this folder with the jurors as “Previewers” already. Instructions for how to upload files into Box are shown above in steps 21-24.

30. Next, upload the verdict forms into the “Verdict Forms” folder. Now is the time to share this folder with the jurors. Make all the jurors “Editors,” so that they can fill out the jury verdict form in Box. Com.

31. Finally, share the “Admitted Evidence” folder with the jurors and give them “Previewer” status. The jurors will be able to view all admitted exhibits but not download them or share them.

Viewing the Verdict Form Once a Verdict is Ready

32. Once the jury informs you that they have reached a verdict, you can retrieve the verdict form in Box.com by clicking on the “Verdict Forms” folder and then clicking on the verdict form(s) themselves. You will then see the filled-out verdict form. Because the courtroom deputy has privileges to that folder, the courtroom deputy will need to share the verdict folder with the judge so the judge may examine the verdict for form, and read the verdict.